November was a flurry of activity as we finished the attic, except for staining some woodwork, entertained my sister for a few days, cleaned our house, talked with a writer from our newspaper who featured us in an article and had a visit from the photographer and writer, planned for Thanksgiving, and visited with our son who arrived for a whole week’s visit.\u00a0 His arrival was somewhat of a surprise for us, as he had not told us exactly when he would be coming.\u00a0 But we were delighted to have his company.\u00a0 We celebrated\u00a0 Thanksgiving on Friday, since our other son and his family arrived then.\u00a0 All 13 of us were able to sit at one table in the dining room. We had hoped the baby would be there with us in her high chair, but she napped during dinner time.\u00a0 Our feast included traditional foods such as roast turkey, cranberry relish, green beans, salad, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, rice stuffing and bread stuffing.\u00a0 Traditional, in this context, means the past 200 years or so.\u00a0 It also means, our family traditions.\u00a0 For a long time, I could not eat wheat, and during that time, I learned to make stuffing for the turkey out of rice.\u00a0 This stuffing is now a favorite of one daughter.\u00a0 First, you cook the rice as usual.\u00a0 Then you cut up and saute onions, celery, and mushrooms.\u00a0 Mix with the rice, and put it inside the turkey for roasting.\u00a0 According to your taste, you can use salt, pepper and thyme for seasonings.\u00a0 The recipe was on the small box of brown rice many years ago.\u00a0 I thought I had saved it somewhere, and maybe I did, but it is in my head now. These days rice comes in a big plastic bag.<\/p>\n
Since I can eat wheat now, or at least, I do eat it, whether it is good for me or not, and since we live in the Midwest now, I make bread stuffing also.\u00a0 I use the Betty Crocker recipe, with the apples and raisins, and pecans.\u00a0 This year, I put the rice inside the turkey, and the bread stuffing around it in the roaster\u00a0 pan.\u00a0 I use an electric roaster these days—so convenient.<\/p>\n
Our daughter acquired the turkey from a farmer.\u00a0 We prefer the fresh turkey, with no additives.\u00a0 This bird was delivered to me on Monday before Thanksgiving.\u00a0 It had been killed only a few days before.\u00a0 It is three times more expensive than the ones in the grocery store, but worth every dollar, in our family’s opinion.\u00a0 It weighed more than twenty pounds, but fit in our roaster pan nicely.\u00a0 On the first day, we fed 13 people.\u00a0 On the second day, 12 people.\u00a0 On the third day, we fed 6 people.\u00a0 On the fourth day, we were back to just the two of us, and we had some sandwiches.\u00a0 Then I cooked the carcass for soup, and gave half to our daughter.\u00a0 Counting the meals from leftovers, we can say we served 35 people from that turkey, and the soup is still to come.\u00a0 We put the broth in our freezers.<\/p>\n
Our daughters met on Wednesday and made many many pies, about 14.\u00a0 These were all eaten by the end of the third day.\u00a0 They included blueberry, pecan, pumpkin, apple, peach, mincemeat.\u00a0 Mincemeat is a traditional food, prepared in the fall to be ready for the festivals of Thanksgiving and Christmas.\u00a0 I make it from beef heart, apples, raisins, currants, oranges, lemons, sugar and spices such as cinnamon.\u00a0 First I bake the meat, then chop or grind it.\u00a0 Next chop the fruit, add the juices, sugar, and spices, and then pour whiskey and brandy over it.\u00a0 Then it ages in a crock in a cool place, in this case the refrigerator.\u00a0 To serve it, we bake it in a pie.\u00a0 First you have to heat it on the stove, to get it started, then put it in the pie and bake.\u00a0 You have to get it hot enough long enough to change the alcohol.\u00a0 Otherwise, though it is safe to eat, you might as well just have a glass of brandy.<\/p>\n
It was quite cold that weekend, so cold that we could store food on the porch.\u00a0 But we were especially grateful for our complete family gathering, since it was the first in three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
November was a flurry of activity as we finished the attic, except for staining some woodwork, entertained my sister for a few days, cleaned our house, talked with a writer from our newspaper who featured us in an article and had a visit from the photographer and writer, planned for Thanksgiving, and visited with our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}